Everything is Hard

Brace yourself for a long post with thoughts about life and how it has changed in my 61 years.

Ever noticed how anything you might want to accomplish is hard? All the possible places for things to get hung up, snagged, delayed, misunderstood, broken, unavailable are endless. It is a wonder any of us get anywhere on time, keep ourselves together, keep moving forward. Look at these examples:

A. We need a new water heater and want to switch from electric to propane. My current favorite contractor said that he could do the job. That was in August. The number of obstacles he has encountered since then would just flatten anyone. I kept calling. When we finally connected and set a date, it didn’t happen. I learned that he was waiting on the plumber, whose truck broke down. And who knows how many obstacles that poor guy encountered? Plumber #2 couldn’t get the right brand of water heater, so on and on it goes.

B. Two years ago we switched from Huge & Rude Telephone Company to Spectrum. It took many weeks, many hours on the phone with both companies, and no business telephone for 6 weeks. (In case you are wondering, the internet is great, the teevee selection not as good but the quality of the picture much improved, and the landline okay but it cannot call the cell phone.)

C. A customer requested that I buy Microsoft Word to be better able to help him (I am editing his book). Microsoft’s chat feature didn’t work, and the phone number didn’t reach a real person. I just bought it anyway without getting my concerns addressed, and then I learned that my Mac operating system wouldn’t run it. I had to upgrade my operating system but couldn’t because my computer didn’t have enough available memory. Many calls to Apple (all were quite helpful) eventually said that I had to erase my computer in order to install the new OS. I hoped that the external hard drive where I back up my laptop actually contained the information and wasn’t just a dummy. (Yep, I prayed over that mess.) Now that my system is up to date, neither my scanner nor my printer will work with my computer any more. 

These are just a few examples of how complicated our world has gotten. You probably have many examples of your own.

In the olden days these things were true: checks were free from the bank; grocery bags were free at the markets; places that sent a bill would provide an envelope (even stamped, in some cases!); the newspaper kept their opinions to the Opinion Page; everyone was allowed to have a fireplace and a lawn; someone else would put gas in your tank and even wash your windshield; you could walk into an airport, pay for a flight, and board, all within an hour’s time; real people answered the telephone at work and at home; you could actually see people’s faces when out in public.

I am so thankful to be able to just head out to the painting studio, and begin. The only obstacles to getting work done are finding the right reference photos (a large obstacle when doing custom art for people with vague ideas of what they want), the sun too bright or too weak to mix colors correctly, the inability to see my own errors, or Jackson biting my leg because he feels deprived of food. (The neighbor’s barking dog isn’t an obstacle, only a nuisance.)

Let’s just look at a calm photo and try to be thankful for the moments of ease and peace that remain (NO! DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT LISTING ALL THAT THE VIRUS HAS STOLEN!!)

Cabin Painting in Stages

You’ve seen most of these photos before. I am showing them again so you can see them all on the same page in order of progression on this painting. Besides, it will help me to see them all together because then I will know I have actually accomplished something.

A few more details (including the flag and porch railing), painting the edges, signing, and then maybe this will be finished. 

Making art people can understand of places and things they love for prices that won’t scare them.

More Dabbling with Sequoias

I’ve gotten some helpful suggestions for dealing with the Sequoia oil painting that doesn’t please me.

First, I added the upper branches. (You’ve seen this.)

Next, I changed the green in the background forest to make it look more distant, and also strengthened the color and contrast in the main tree.

Finally, I added branches of a tree that was in the foreground.

Sometimes I think this painting might be headed for a dumpster.

Dabbling with Sequoias

The big sequoia painting is coming along. I had to rotate it on the easel in order to see the edge of my brush in order to accurately paint an edge. This might qualify as “drawing with my paintbrush”. Yeppers, that’s the way I paint.

These big paintings are S L O W. That’s okay – the show I am preparing for is a year away. 

Oh no! The gallery just asked if I could switch from January 2022 to April of this year! I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!

Virtual Drawing Lesson

Figuring out a way to teach via computer seems like an important skill. I tried it earlier this year using Zoom, but hit a rough spot when it came time for me to demonstrate, or show my work, or see my students’ work, or lay a piece of tissue paper over their drawings to show them how to adjust proportions. 

Okay, that was more than “a rough spot”. It just didn’t work past a certain stage.

As long as I have been teaching people how to draw, I have been learning from my students. One of my students had a good idea of how to do this and was willing to try. Let’s call her C, because this is the World Wide Web and I protect the privacy of people. 

C scanned her drawing in progress and the photo she is using. I looked over her work, and just as if we were together, I circled various parts on her photo, and then showed her on another piece of paper how to proceed. This is her photo, so there is no copyright problem.

Before I show you her photo, drawing, and my instructions: if you are a bit of an art snob, before you get all bent about how “copying isn’t real art”, let me remind you that I am a drawing teacher. I help people learn how to put on paper what they really see, not what they think they see. This is the basis for good art. You have to learn how to see first.

Whooo-eee, that is some sloppy handwriting! I’m sorry, C, and will work harder to write more neatly next time. Plus, I made a writo – a typo in handwriting – “hit” instead of “hint”.

If we were together, I’d circle through the other students in the class, helping them in whatever way they needed, and then get back to C to learn if my suggestions were helpful to her, if she needed me to rephrase or clarify something, or if she was ready for more instruction.

This could be fun! 

P.S. Do horses have “bangs”?

Slow-poke Cabin

“Slow-poke” is a weird old word that probably has a good story behind it. This cabin isn’t a slow cabin; the painting of it is slow. Wait, no, the painter is slow. No, not slow–the painter is painting slowly.

Good Grief Charlie Brown.

I added shutters to the windows and door, changed the color of the cabin, began the dreaded lattice, added some dirt, tightened up the steps, began detailing the windows, changed the skyline and the forest in the background, and then needed to go have a smoke.

JUST KIDDING! I’ve never smoked anything in my entire life.

Isn’t it peculiar how the colors differ so greatly in different times of the day? When the painting is finished and dry (at this rate in another several months, GGCB), the scan should show the truest colors.

Using pencil, oil paint and murals, I make art you can understand of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

(But sometimes the process might scare you.)

Big and Slow

After painting the snowy sequoia scene, 24×48″, these current 18×36″ pieces shouldn’t feel large to me. 

Alas, they do.

I often tell my drawing students, “You can be fast or you can be good – you get to decide”. Then I say that in pencil, I get to be both fast and good. (If it is true, it isn’t bragging.)

In oil painting, it is necessary for me to be slow in order to be good, at least the way I define good (and my customers too, or they wouldn’t be customers).

These two oil paintings on the easels are going v e r y  s l o w l y.

I am jumping all over the canvas (not literally, don’t worry), chasing around different sections, based on the colors I mix and what catches my interest. Eventually it will all get covered.

The only difference between these two photos of the sunny sequoias is that I cleaned yellow off my brush on the second one. It was left from finishing the edges on the cowboy painting. The entire canvas needs to be covered multiple times, and wasting oil paint hurts my frugal heart, so now there is a strangely colored first layer near the bottom.

Your Central California artist continues to make art you understand, of places and things you love, at prices that won’t scare you.

(But sometimes her early color choices might.)

Working Studio

Some people get the words “studio” and “gallery” mixed up. A studio is where one creates art (as in “study”), and a gallery is where art is displayed and sold (we hope).

I have two studios: one is my real studio, where I draw and do computer things and paperwork; the other is actually part of a giant workshop building attached to our garages where I paint. It is a mess, which is fine for a place to paint, because sometimes I drop paintbrushes or spill turpentine. It is also where our three cats live safely at night.

This is a recent look at the workshop, my painting studio. Paintings in various stages of progress and drying are occupying the visible space; other paintings are stacked on shelves, waiting to be finished. Blank canvases are also stacked on shelves and leaning against the shelves too; since painting large, it is a little trickier to manage my canvases, especially when they are wet.

All this is in preparation for a show scheduled for January 2022. (If you see something you want to buy directly from me and not wait for it to be in a gallery, let’s talk!)

I make art that you can understand, about places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

(but sometimes the painting workshop might be a little scary.)

Better Idea

After adding the birch branches to the Hard House oil painting commission, I happened to look at an oil painting of a Sequoia in my studio. For some reason, I haven’t really liked this painting very well.

Since it hasn’t sold, maybe no one else likes it either. After working on the sequoia mural and the giant snowy sequoia oil painting, I had an idea of how to improve it.

It always feels weird to put a completed painting back on the easel. It is a blend of feeling good about knowing I can improve it, and feeling a little embarrassed that I didn’t figure it out sooner.

Okay, now look:

Maybe I can do better. It took awhile to recognize the photo I used for this painting because I have definitely used it as reference only rather than an exact recipe.

Maybe I’ll keep messing with it. The contrast could be heightened on the main tree, and maybe a foggy looking distant sequoia would look believable behind it to the left, as in the photo. All the distant trees could be made grayer or lighter or something that shoves them farther back.

Who am I to think I can improve on nature? The answer is this: I am someone who understands that real life is messy and artists get to clean it up. For example, look at the large amount of dead branches on the 2 trees to the left of the main tree in the photo. What purpose would they serve in this painting? Likewise with the young tree in front on the right side – it obstructs the view of the big tree.

So many decisions for just one painting – it is a wonder I can even decide what to wear in the morning. Aha! That explains why I often don whatever I left on The Chair the night before.

I make art that you can understand, of places and things you love (CUSTOM ART), for prices that won’t scare you.

More Hard House

Before sending the photo to my friend/customer of the oil painting of her grandparents’ house, I studied it on the computer screen, comparing it to the photo.

The mistakes in perspective and proportion just knocked me sideways.

Some were fixable, some are not. Back on the easel it went with the main problem being the bay window.

My friend didn’t notice any trouble there but asked that window on the balcony to be turned into a sliding screen door, and for some grass to be planted in front of the porch.

After I did those things, I noticed another problem with the balcony and changed the proportions there.

It needs to dry, and I need to figure out when to say when.

And chances are that if you read this far, you are probably yawning and wondering what all the jibber-jabber is about. My friend is very patient, doesn’t understand all my pickiness, and is happy with the painting, now in her possession.

Meanwhile, I will keep working to. . .

. . .make art that people understand about places and things they love for prices that won’t scare them.

(Although sometimes the process scares me.)